Corpus Christi port moves ahead on rail yard

   The Port of Corpus Christi has awarded a $12.6 million contract to low bidder Haas-Anderson Construction to build a new interchange rail yard at the west end of the inner harbor, the port authority announced Tuesday.
   Rail traffic at the Texas port has more than doubled during the past five years. The Nueces River Rail Yard will include an 8,000-foot long track that can hold a 110-car unit train, six railcar siding tracks about 4,000 feet in length with enough space for more than 335 railcars, a service road, drainage improvements, and an automated system for identifying individual railcars as they enter and leave the rail yard.
   The Port of Corpus Christi, located on the western end of the Gulf of Mexico, was awarded a $10 million TIGER grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation last June for the project. TIGER grants are highly competitive and one of the few tools DOT has to advance multi-modal and freight projects.
   The total estimated cost of the rail yard project is $18 million. The Corpus Christi Port Authority will provide $8 million and recover about half its investment from a surcharge that will be assessed to rail providers Union Pacific, BNSF Railway and Kansas City Southern.
   The second phase of the project will increase the unit-train siding capacity to eight parallel tracks, with $22 million in funding from the Texas Department of Transportation and $6 million from the port itself. – Eric Kulisch